


like real people do

by agent_of_mischief



Series: Anathema Doesn't Burn The Book Verse [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Confessions, First Kiss, Fluff, Footnotes, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slight Canon Divergence, crowley's plants - Freeform, many footnotes I'm making uncle Terry proud, matchmaker anathema, tv show compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-10
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-04-24 02:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19164151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_of_mischief/pseuds/agent_of_mischief
Summary: Anathema Device realizes burning a book is not the only way to get rid of it, Aziraphale receives some very human advice, and Crowley gets up to absolutely demonic nightly activities. A week after the Non-pocalypse everything is back to normal, and there is one last thing left to be sorted after six thousand years...





	like real people do

_I will not ask you where you came from  
I will not ask you, neither should you_

_Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips  
We should just kiss like real people do_

_-Hozier, Like Real People Do_

* * *

 

 Anathema considers the number on the slip of paper Newt has left her pinned to the fridge. He went through quite a lot of grief to reach Sargent Shadwell and get it for her, and it’s not like she has been able to contact the angel –the actual, honest[1] to God angel- any other way. The two of them were definitely close anyway, him and the demon, even before the defining events of the Nonpocalypse.

She dials and considers what she’s going to say. The phone rings for a long time. When the dial tone finally stops, she has more or less got it. “Hello, it’s Anathema-“

“ _Hi, this is Anthony Crowley. You know what to do. Do it with style_.” A prerecorded familiar voice, delayed just enough to awkwardly interrupt [2] comes in before a drawn out beep.

Anathema is familiar with anachronistic practices and artifacts, they kind of came with the Witch and Descendant job descriptions. But answering machines aren’t among those, and in fact the entire advent of the telephone has sort of bypassed her. It is always either text messages or centuries old prophecies on cards with her[3]. She stammers for a moment before she finally starts speaking.

“Hello, Mr. Crowley. It’s Anathema Device, the… witch, calling from Jasmine Cottage. I’m looking for Az- er, Mr. Fell? Thank-”

“Why are you looking for him here?”

This time the interrupting voice isn’t a recording, and it almost makes Anathema jump out of her skin.

“Hello. I, er, he’s not answering in the bookstore, and he has no mobile number, and I need to talk to him about a book.” She composes herself.

“I see.   _If_ I see him, I shall let him know. No promises. Goodbye”.

And just like that, the line goes dead. _That could have gone worse,_ Anathema decides with a shrug. She doesn’t need Agnes to tell her to expect a call from a certain angel rather soon. So she turns her attention back to the book.

* * *

 

Crowley slams the receiver down with unnecessary force. A sense of irritation, ever present these days, flares up, and he takes a moment to will it down. He saunters back into the living room with all the languid ease of someone with no cares in the world. Even so, Aziraphale looks up at him from the couch radiating concern.

“Don’t worry, Angel”. Crowley finds his voice coming out uncharacteristically soft. “It was just the witch girl from Tadfield.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale exclaims with a small sigh, “what did she want?”

“Ssshe… waslookingforyou.” Crowley’s words come out in a fast jumble as he throws himself on the couch beside Aziraphale.

“Oh?” The angel’s eyes light up with a spark of curiosity. Crowley feels his stomach clench a little.

“Something about a book?” he adds, as if it’s an inconsequential detail. He feels warmth fill him when Aziraphale’s face erupts in a tentative but brilliant smile. His body, as if of its own accord, gravitates towards the angel, like all cold blooded things do when confronted with the radiance of the sun. _He wants to close the distance between them and…_

Crowley gives his head a violent shake, willing the intrusive thought away. Here he is, a demon having to silence the voice of temptation in his head.  He almost wants to laugh, but the stakes here are no joke, even for him. After all, how can he risk ruining everything they have? Everything they had to face the hordes of Heaven and Hell to protect?

“… then again, who knows what kind of collection her family must have. My dear boy, are you alright?”

Aziraphale’s soft hand on Crowley’s shoulder snaps him back into reality, and he almost recoils.

“Yes, I’m sorry.” Crowley mutters. He says it increasingly more often lately, _I’m sorry,_ as if trying to fit millennia of apologies in a few days, lest the world actually ends after all. He’s not even sure what half of his apologies are for.

“It’s quite alright, I do get carried away on the subject of books,” Aziraphale concedes, “I’m afraid I can get downright tiring sometimes.”

“No!” Crowley's denial is fierce and adamant. “It’s not that at all, angel, I was just thinking about, er, my plants!” he exclaims.

The slight rustling of leaves can be heard from another room, at least if you have the hearing of a celestial being.

“Yes, _someone, or a few someones,_ have been disappointing me lately!” Crowley shouts in the direction of his plant room. The plant room Aziraphale knows about, that is. The one where the most luscious houseplants in all of England reside, and are currently trembling in their pots.

“My dear, you shouldn’t put so much pressure on them, poor dears.” Aziraphale argues, like he has done many times before.

Crowley latches onto the familiar argument for dear life. He starts his usual rant on why Aziraphale is absolutely wrong concerning anything even adjacent to gardening. Meanwhile, Aziraphale pretends to be affronted and says his piece on the nurturing power of a kind word or two. Crowley can breathe again, tempting thoughts safely squashed away for the rest of the foreseeable evening.

A few hours later Aziraphale leaves, Anathema’s phone number snug in his coat pocket. He hasn’t spent the night there ever since that first night after the almost-apocalypse. Crowley hasn’t offered again. But every time he holds his door open for the angel the offer creeps closer and closer to the edge of his tongue. This time is no different, so Crowley bites down on it and nods in place of a goodnight.

When the door closes he slides on the floor, his back to the polished wood. His blood, he feels, is doing weird un-snake-like things[4] and he needs to take a few calming breaths. Then he realizes something, a reminder brought along by his earlier excuses to the angel. He hasn’t done his _midnight run_ [5] since before the faux-pocalypse. It had felt quite useless the week before, and he’s been too busy marveling at the fact that everything was still there the week after.

But now he has no excuse, it's really way overdue. He creeps his way through his apartment, away from the large plant room. If his plants catch wind of what's going on he’s going to lose all the respect he has worked so hard to build. _It would be outright rebellion, and he can't have that._

The back room isn't exactly in the apartment, or England, or this plane of existence for the matter. It exists though, with real oxygen, and real sunlight pouring in through large windows and real humidity in the air that makes Crowley's hair stick unpleasantly to his forehead. The plants currently in there are far from being beyond redemption. Some sport spots or wilted leaves, but they are very much alive and standing [6] . The voice he uses for them is soft. An imitation of the way Aziraphale talks to them when he thinks the demon isn't paying attention.

"Alright, guys, time to go. You'll be someone else's problem soon," he says as he moves each small pot inside a big cardboard box that has appeared in his arms.

He covers the box with a dark piece of tarp.

"Now," he says, the edge creeping back into his voice "be really quiet like if you know what's good for you."

A few minutes later he's sitting behind the Bentley's wheel, the box of plants sitting uncovered in the back seat. He used to take the defectors to St. James, but lately he has realized there is a single place in all of England where everything grows a little greener. He turns the key in the ignition and feels the engine come to life somewhere deep his stomach. There is one urge he never has to stifle, and despite himself he grins as he pulls out on the street.

* * *

 

Aziraphale manages to wait for an hour. His phone call with the young witch had been brief, but it left him excited. And from what he could tell she'd been as keen to get rid of the book as he was to acquire it. In fact, when he had asked her when he could go over she had replied "as soon as you can".

Aziraphale knows regular people don't mean that as literally as he, as a celestial being, can see it through. He knows humans, for all the short of their lifespan, like to take their time with certain things, what with the need for sleep and other pesky things.

 _Then again,_ he is thinking now, one hour since the phone call ended, Miss Device hardly counts as "regular people". That thought is kindling, and the agitation which has been a pre-existing condition for days now is all the spark he needs. He gets up and considers ways to get to Tadfield.

His first instinct, of course, is to call Crowley. He's the one that drives them everywhere. But he squanders that thought instantly. It's not a dangerous thought in itself, but it leads to others. And _those_ are definitely dangerous, unthinkable even. Putting aside the theological and philosophical implications of an angel- _an angel-_ even considering the kind of things he feels around Crowley sometimes, the danger is enough to dissuade him. The things that can happen to Crowley if he ever humors the angel and his silly emotions.

Aziraphale remembers the fear that gripped him when Crowley's phone rang earlier this afternoon. He is the only person who normally calls Crowley's home line, and Aziraphale's mind had instantly conjured images of demon Lords coming to drag Crowley to the pits.

 _And they would give him a ring first, you silly angel?_ He'd chastised himself later, when Crowley had told him who it was.

The angel realizes he's pacing, getting even more worked up than before. He turns back to the matter at hand. _Tadfield._ He's had enough of buses for the next century, and since he'd need to miracle the entire route there at this late an hour, well he might as well cut out the middle-man. _It's not a waste of miracles when it concerns something as important as a book of prophecies,_ he assures himself.

The next moment, space and time give under the pull of his angelic power, and he's standing outside Jasmine Cottage, miracled biscuit-tin in hand. He hovers uncertainly by the front door for a moment, and then he gives it a soft knock.

The door swings open instantly and he is faced with the thankfully awake- he never was good with human schedules so he hadn't been sure- and alert bespectacled witch, who waves him in with a small smile.

"Oh, thank you," he mutters, and then as he remembers himself "I hope this is not a bad time." The effect of the statement is lessened by the fact that he's already taken a seat on the kitchen table.

"Not at all," Anathema assures him. "I have been expecting you, Mr. Fell."

"You can call me Aziraphale," he says absently, his attention instantly drawn to the loose manuscript in the middle of the kitchen table.

Anathema places a cup of tea in front of him and takes a seat.

"For a moment I considered burning it," she admits.

A spark of righteous fury ignites in Aziraphale's chest. The burning of books is, no matter the circumstances, more than he can forgive. All-forgiving angelic nature be buggered. It must be somewhat obvious on his face because the girl continues: "But I realized I shouldn't do something like that. Still, I don't want it."

Her voice is decisive, and Aziraphale looks up to see her eyes match it.

"Dear girl, may I ask why?"

Aziraphale is more of a talker than a listener, and Anathema is neither [7] but there's genuine inviting curiosity on Aziraphale's open face.

"All my life I've been a professional descendant. Ever since I was a child I have been trying to guess what Agnes wanted me to do to stop Armageddon. And now it's over. I guess I just want to be free."

She pauses for a thoughtful moment. Aziraphale nods at her and she continues.

"I want to make my own choices, carve my own path that isn't decided for me from birth. I want to love, and travel, and open doors without knowing what's on the other side."

"How wonderfully human," Aziraphale breathes out in a low voice. He didn't mean to say it out loud.

"But that's what you did, you and Mr. Crowley. Isn't it?" Anathema asks. "That's part of what stopped the whole apocalypse from happening. You chose freedom and love and…"

Anathema trails off, on account of the fact that the angel in front of her seems to be… _blushing_?

She bites her lip and he buries his face in his tea mug.

"I didn't mean to assume. But I mean, with Heaven and Hell no longer interfering, I thought…" Anathema trails off.

"They're not interfering for now." Aziraphale interjects, sobering up.  "It could be months, or years, or entire lifetimes for a human, but what if they decide it is their business again?" He shakes his head regretfully.

"So, you don't have the time to waste, right?"

Aziraphale gives her a look that would be sad on any other face. It's soul crushing on his. "I can only make that decision for myself, dear, but Crowley… A renegade demon would be in all the more danger than an angel."

"He must know the danger himself," Anathema argues.

"But he doesn't! Or he doesn't care. He always puts himself in danger. He won't look after himself if I don't." Aziraphale's tone is verging on desperate.

Anathema ruminates on that while she puts another kettle on the stove. Aziraphale composes himself, but the dark pit in his stomach only seems to grow larger.

"If he puts himself in danger anyway, the best you could do, I think, is to be with him when he does. Stand with him, like you did when Heaven and Hell were about to crash down on us all," she says at last.

Aziraphale is rendered speechless. There is something, again, so uniquely human about her approach. It sounds very similar to a young Antichrist deciding to name his hellhound "Dog", or to Madame Tracy deciding shooting a child is not an option even when weighed against The Common Good. It sounds like a glimpse of freedom, a gust of fresh wind in a stale room. He wants to laugh out loud at himself. Instead he settles for a grin.

"That's-"

He's cut off by a loud crash from somewhere outside the window.

"Oh dear," he mutters, and then when he sees Anathema walk towards the door he springs up. "Maybe you should let me see," he suggests. He's almost certain he can deal with, _whatever that is_ without getting discorporated. Anathema turns and shoots him a smile that has, dare he say, a certain Crowley-ness to it.

"It's quite alright," she says.

He follows her outside the door, and he turns on her porch light-several volts brighter than the little bulb could possibly provide- with a snap of his fingers. There's a small shed in the left side of the garden, and outside it, illuminated in the strong porch light is none other than Crowley. He is balancing a crate of potted plants under one arm, and triumphantly holding up a gardening set in the other. The light glints off his shades, and the interior of the shed behind him sports an amount of collapsed shelves.

"Crowley! What in God's name are you doing here?" Aziraphale exclaims.

The demon shoves the little bucket and shovel behind his back.

"Tresssspassssing," he hisses at them. "Unspeakably evil demonic business," he adds.

"That involves gardening?" Aziraphale raises an eyebrow.

Crowley shakes his head and saunters up to them. "I am abandoning my plants," he says, "very demonic."

"And this," he continues with a sweeping gesture towards Anathema's garden, "if I were to judge from the state of your petunias, is actual _plant Hell_." The laugh he lets out is laced with something bitter.

Aziraphale is about to say something, when Crowley shushes him, pulling one of the potted plants out of the crates and shoving it near Anathema's face.

"Plus, you see this? You see _its state?_ That's your burden now, your cross to bear. Utterly demonic," he concludes, handing a bemused Anathema the entire crate. He proceeds to dust his suit jacket of invisible dirt.

Aziraphale feels a fondness swell in his chest that he has been too afraid to give a name to for a long time now [8]. But he's known its name with absolute certainty since, _well it must have been the 1940's._

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Crowley asks suspiciously.

"Nothing, my dear, merely wondering if you can give me a ride home," he says softly.

Anathema quietly removes herself from the situation, walking back inside the house with her new crate of perfectly healthy if a bit imperfect plants.

In lieu of a response, Crowley offers Aziraphale his arm. Aziraphale takes it, and as they make their way, arms linked, towards where the Bentley is parked Anathema's porch light goes dark, leaving the brilliant starlight to guide them.

* * *

 

Crowley opens the passenger door for the angel and waves him in; it’s habit at this point. He steals glances at him while he starts the car, and then he speeds off across the quiet country road. Usually he makes a point of slowing down when Aziraphale is in the car with him, but now he feels pins and needles under his skin that only speed can numb. _And it’s Aziraphale’s fault anyway, appearing here like that while Crowley is trying to take his mind off him._

“Crowley, dear, could you pull over for a moment?” Aziraphale breaks the silence between them. A heavy silence, companionable but charged with something thick in the air.

“Going too fast for you again, angel?” There’s something bitter there, almost mocking, but still Crowley slows down the car.

“I just want to talk for a moment,” Aziraphale continues softly.

Crowley glances over at him, but he can’t read his expression.  That alone is enough to urge him to pull the Bentley to the side of the road. He pulls the parking brake and continues staring ahead.

“You know, I have been worried.” Aziraphale mutters it like a guilty confession.

The bitter taste in the back of Crowley’s throat dissolves instantly, and he turns towards his friend.

“I know, angel.” This time the name is uttered with affection, no trace of scorn. “I worry too,” he says. _I worry I will ruin everything,_ he doesn’t say.

He sees the angel’s hand hovering over his own that’s gripping the stick shift; he doesn’t think it’s even conscious. His decision to reach out and grab it is. He squeezes in what he hopes is a reassuring manner. The hint of a smile plays on Aziraphale’s face, Crowley can tell even in the dark behind his shades.

“I don’t know what I’d do if… If something happened to you,” Aziraphale mutters, “If Hell or Heaven or anyone tried to hurt you, after everything I… I would be lost, without you.”

Crowley meets Aziraphale’s eyes, so full of worry and fondness and something deeper than both those things. The thing that has been coiled in Crowley’s chest since the faux-pocalypse, since the Antichrist was delivered, since the fall of Rome, and since the Garden, _growing_ and _coiling tighter and tighter and tighter_ finally erupts, crawls up his throat, and threatens to choke him if he doesn’t let it out.

“Angel, I love you.”

The words feel like a triumphant scream trapped in silence for millennia finally given a voice, like speeding down the freeway in a perfect day, and like plummeting into darkness all over again, flapping his wings against an unstoppable force. Crowley screws his eyes shut and tries to pull his hand away. The angel tightens his grip and mutters his name, and Crowley is no longer falling. He opens his eyes and looks up, almost defiantly. He’s ready for anything; pity, dismissal, coldness, _the flaming sword to finally drop on him- a fitting curtain’s call._

“I love you too.”

He was not ready for _that._ Even after he hears it, he is still not.

“Of course,” he barks a shaky laugh, “you are an angel, you are _perfect_ , you love everything, even me, in your angelic way.”

Aziraphale lets go of his hand, and the absence of contact feels like it’s turning his already cold blood into ice. But then the angel’s hand is back, cupping Crowley’s cheek with feather light tenderness.

“That, my dear Crowley, is quite far from it. I am afraid I am a terrible angel.” Aziraphale says, leaning in closer, pulling Crowley’s dark shades off to stare right into his golden eyes.

And then, as if Crowley’s heart isn’t already threatening to jump out of his chest, the angel closes the last of the distance, and kisses him. It’s a chaste kiss, and by the time Crowley manages to unfreeze and return it, it’s over.

“Rather, I love you in a human way, I think,” Aziraphale says.

“Oh, angel,” Crowley breathes out. In that moment, he thinks Aziraphale’s smile could light up the night sky. He doesn’t know the angel is thinking the exact same about him.

His own hands come up to frame Aziraphale’s face, they brush past his cheeks and tangle in his hair as he pulls him in for another kiss, deeper, more desperate, but still slow. It’s an exploration, and they both revel in it, briefly coming up for air before diving in deeper. They’ve got time now, all the time in the world just for this.

* * *

 

Of course the angel would forget the book. Anathema sighs. She can always have Newt drive her to London; take it to the bookstore herself. Still, it feels too much like one of these - _how had these two called them? Ineffable_ things. She glowers at the book.

“I won’t,” she states out loud in the empty cottage.

She makes to walk away and pauses. _No harm in checking, just once,_ she thinks. To make sure, if anything, that she is making the right decision.

Eyes half closed, she flips Agnes’s manuscript open to a random page and runs her finger down. She stops and opens her eyes.

 

_Whenne ye receiveth a gyft from the gardene of the serpent, Deville and Angel shall be enjoined then, at laste, af one._

 

Anathema scrunches up her face and slams the manuscript shut.

“Well, good for them,” she mutters at long last. And then, “that thing is definitely leaving.”

* * *

 

 

[1] Or at least, Anathema guesses, vague and not dishonest enough for things to start going quite literally South for him

[2] This could be another one of Crowley’s strokes of low-key demonic genius, or so he’ll have anyone who asks believe, but in fact it’s just a result of the time it took for him to come up with the _perfect_ message for his answering machine while the recording had already started

[3] One could argue that the first is the natural descendant of the latter, as opposed to phone calls. Those are more representative of how Heaven and Hell communicate, rather than humanity, all disembodied voices and the like

[4] Such as run warm at times, especially in areas around the face, a phenomenon that must be a side effect of Aziraphale’s celestial energies, as far as the demon is concerned

[5] Despite what the name suggests, they are hardly likely to get him a demonic commendation, and they usually don't happen in actual midnight, as you're about to see

[6] Something they are still marveling at in whichever capacity they are able to

[7] At least concerning the matter of her feelings, she does have quite a lot to say about more global matters

[8] Six thousand years, give or take

**Author's Note:**

> Like many people, I am solidly on the Good Omens Bandwagon. First completed work since before I got over to Ao3. That's a long time.


End file.
